Corbett touts pension reform during county visit

Gov. Tom Corbett likened pension reform to tough love during his visit to the Pennsylvania Veterinary New Bolton Center in East Marlborough Thursday morning.

While Corbett focused much of his time touting his preliminary budget that maintains funding for the school’s veterinary education and research, he said future funding for this and many other items in the state budget are in jeopardy unless there is real pension reform.

Corbett is insisting on sweeping reforms to the state’s pension system that include a roll-back of the retirement enhancements passed in 2001. A formula change would affect state workers, educators and lawmakers.

“In the next few years, you will see the economy grow in Pennsylvania faster than the rest of the country,” Corbett said. “But there is a caveat – we need to work on the pension system. It continues to eat up so much of new revenue that’s coming in. This year alone, our contribution will be 62 percent of expected revenue coming into Pennsylvania.”

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Corbett is proposing to move all new government employees and all new teachers from a defined pension plan to a flexible retirement plan similar to a 401k. Leaders of the state’s largest public employee unions have already pledged to meet any changes aimed at current employees with a lawsuit.

On the same day that a Franklin & Marshall poll revealed that 26 percent of registered voters say Corbett is doing a good job — the lowest rating of any sitting governor in the history of the F&M poll – Corbett acknowledged people are angry at him. But, he said, it’s tough love.

“There’s quite a few people who are annoyed with me,” Corbett said. “We’re controlling spending and living within our budget. When we don’t have money for what people think we can do, they think we can do what Washington does, which is to print it.”

Corbett said if the pension crisis is resolved, Pennsylvania will see an economic boom.

“I can feel it and I can see it is within our grasp as long as we get major reform done on pensions,” he said. “I see what other states are doing and we’re going to pass them right up. We have the makings of everything right here. Businesses that were leaving because energy costs so much are moving here because energy costs so much less.”

In the past two years, the private sector workforce in Pennsylvania increased by 109,000, which Corbett attributed to living within a budget.

Pension reform, Corbett will be “a challenge for me and the General Assembly” in the coming months.